The Yr
The Yr (from Yralijmi: the "Burdened Ones," - Yralijmi literally means "Burdened Ones' Tongue") are a sapient species of rocky near-human aliens from the Planet Yrkatha (Yrkatha literally meaning "Yr Home") living in at least small numbers all across the Universal Union. An especially large Yr ghetto called "the Soulless Town" is located in the Wall-City of Lograd, and has a population of over 2,000,000,000,000 people. Planet Yrkatha is a geologically-overactive red waste of a planet dotted by mountains, volcanoes, and lakes of fire. Two seas near the Yrkathan north pole, and one near the south pole are the only safe havens for life on the planet. The Red Empire controls the southern sea, appropriately called the Red Sea. The Burdened Republic, Yrkatha's foremost political power, and the first of its nations to achieve spaceflight controls the northernmost sea, which the Lobott have come to call the Sea of Trinkets. The Burdened Republic's rival of Anorav controls the Sea of the Evil Eye, which they call Zapatzteniz or "Topaz Sea." Though none of the three countries claims to control the vast swathes of territory between them all, in practice the office of the Master of the Burdened Republic has made tens of thousands of petty kings, war lords, chieftains, and geomancers slaves in all but name. On occasions even Red Emperors have been made to bend the knee. On average, the Yr are slightly taller, and thinner than humans with dry plated skin ranging in color from pale pink to red, blood red, orange, brown, yellow, dark green, and even purple. They have faces nearly identical to humans, with slightly more pronounced brows, and darker eyes. Rock-like cartilage structures dot their skin, and protrude from their heads like horns. The Yr grow hair on their heads just like humans, but tend to bald much, much earlier, and so baldness is seen more as a sign of adulthood than of old age. Other than their heads, the Yr are relatively hairless compared to humans. The Yr have larger genitals than humans, and with the application of lubricant can reproduce with them. The Yr do not understand race like humans or Gequans, though the idea has caught on with rural people in the Red Empire. Yr separate themselves much more on political or philosophical lines, as before the rise of Anorav, almost all Yr believed in the same faith, that of the nameless gods of the magma streams, the 'rare rains,' the seas, and the high hills. Notably, the Burdened Republic have a highly bureaucratic culture focused on the disposal of items, efficiency, cleanliness, pragmaticism, and perfection. The rise of the republic about 100 years before Tale of Zul led to a massive, and rapid industrial revolution which only further destroyed Planet Yrkatha's environment. The Sea of Trinkets earned its name from when the republic began disposing of all of its waste in its water, poisoning the water, and nearly causing its collapse as it relied on the sea for many things. The republic recovered, however by inventing spaceflight, and terraforming its moon of Metros. With every tide of the sea, tons of trinkets wash up every single day. The Yr have an even meaner name for it, "the Horder's Sea." Their culture came about after the infamous warlych Ukuluakak Yufar declared himself High King of the High Sea, usurping his older brother Ukuluakak Saluya, and the two other kings charged with ruling the Old Three Kingdoms. Yufar is often called the Trinket King, who hoarded the wealths of the world, and led his Kingdom of the High Sea to ruin. The oligarchs of the time prospered under the Trinket King, and so the masses suffered where once they had prospered. Tyuluk Ma, called the Good Oligarch, was the younger brother of one of the previous two kings, King of Tugo Tyukhan Sosy, and planned in secret a coup so as to replace the Trinket King with a democracy as it was in the old days of Tugo. He enlisted the help of the king's son, Ukuluakak Yoni, a powerful psychic who had committed terrorist acts in opposition to his father. Yoni was an extremist, and a terrorist who was entirely morally opposed to the decadent, and greedy nature of his father, and the oligarchs. Yoni was also a powerful geomancer, a wyzard capable of causing dragonstirs, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, and summoning sandstorms, and leader of the Geomancer's Guild of the High Sea's Kingdom. The coup was successful, but Yoni was unable to kill his father, not out of love, but out of ruthless pragmatism. Though the Trinket King was monstrous, he was also a political genius, and father, son, and good oligarch ruled the new Burdened Republic as three High Senators. Three more generations of high senators followed them, followed by an interim of so-called "High Offices," ten senatorial offices which lasted fifty years, and could wield more power, and more effectively than normal senators. After the interim, the Burdened Republic switched fully to democracy, and elected its first Burden Master, and ever since then, the Burdened Republic has remained far, far ahead of the other nations of Planet Yrkatha. From the House of Ukuluakak, the Burden Master has inherited control of the Geomancer's Guild, as well as Saluya's original lavasword, a large cleaver made of lava, and shaped somewhat like a dayanar. The geomancers are the leaders of the republic's army, and the Burden Master the highest-ranking member of the military. During Huron Space, however, the senator of Tugo, Val Myjak, and his wife Val Mysar, had been making political moves so that the the Universal Hall would doubt the stability of the government of Yrkatha, hopefully allowing him to be appointed interim leader. He was dimly aware of the political turmoil echoing across the universe, and hoped to take advantage of it by not only naming himself High King, but by naming himself emperor. If his plans were to be successful, he would wield enough power to subjugate Anorav, and the Red Empire. Myjak is not entirely a power-hungry man, however, as much of him legitimately believes that transforming Yrkatha into a worldwide empire would only further serve to advance the species, and the republican ideals of burden-taking, or the idea that some unlucky few must bear the full weight of consequences, and suffering for the rest of society, essentially someone must be made an example of, or be a sacrifice. There has been one human geomancer, Sir Gladius King who wielded both a seasteel great-blade, and a lavasword as protector of King Weyne Wall, and his wife Burden Mistress Aran Asogai. Category:Aliens Category:Peoples Category:Biology Category:History Category:Huron Space Category:Near-humankind